


For the Love of the Game

by Rumaan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sports, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Football | Soccer, Humor, Professional Footballer!Jon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 21:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: Jon's at the top of the game football wise but definitely not relationship wise. Enter Sansa to rescue him!





	

**Author's Note:**

> I realised that whilst I written a good number of sport AUs, I've never written a professional football AU, which is outstanding considering how much of a massive football fan I am! Of course, it was imperative for me to rectify that immediately and this AU was born.
> 
> Also, it distressed me greatly to have Jon play for Man United but sadly, my own team (Aston Villa) is terrible and if I'm going to write professional football AUs then I'm going to write Jon being at the top of his game. So, I settled for my husband's team with much internal grumbling.

If anyone had ever asked what career Sansa thought was hot, professional football player would have been really low on the list. For someone who came from a football loving house, she can’t say she’s ever understood the attraction. They’re men who run around kicking a ball for a living. And, okay, the shorts are a nice feature and some of the shirts can be nice and tight and show off what excellent shape the players are in, but it’s not something she’s ever thought was hot.

Until Jon goes and signs for Man United.

She knows Jon’s a talented player. Remembers the howls and screams from their back garden when it would be Robb and Theon vs Jon and Arya or Bran or even Rickon, and Jon’s team would always come out on top because he could carry any one. She even vaguely knew that he’d been scouted at secondary school and signed for a small team down the leagues and worked his way up, but she’d never given it much thought. She was focused on going off to study at Cambridge and she didn’t care about football.

But then she’s back home, fed up with all the rich toffs who inhabit Cambridge in droves and think they are a gift to women purely because their family has money and pedigree, and Jon is everywhere. He’s Mourinho’s hot new summer signing and the man who is also going to, single handed, make the English National Team a footballing power house again. According to the tabloids, he’s Ronaldo _and_ Messi rolled into one handy saviour.

He’s also sitting on her sofa, drinking orange juice and ignoring the constant ring of his mobile.

“Hey, Hot Stuff,” she says, lugging one of her heavy suitcases.

Jon groans. “Not you, too. It’s bad enough that I can’t even go out any more without being mobbed.”

“Awww,” she mocks, ruffling his hair playfully. “Are there droves of girls flocking to your side wanting to be the next Victoria Beckham?”

Colour floods his cheeks and she giggles a little. “Something like that,” he mutters. “Need a hand?”

“Oh, you’re offering to put those sexy footballer muscles at my disposal?” she asks coyly and flutters her eyelashes teasingly at him.

Jon glowers at her but gets up, which has her laughing again before she says, “Please. I’d be grateful. Robb was meant to and pick me up from the station but he bailed. Something about Wylla Manderly needing help putting up some Ikea bookcases.”

“Ah Wylla. He’s besotted.”

“Yeah, Arya said. Sounds cute.”

“It is. Old Man Manderly is thrilled, too.”

They get outside, where her stuff from her year at Uni is waiting.

“I bet,” Sansa says with a grin. Wyman Manderly had been pushing his two granddaughters onto Robb since they were old enough to toddle around.

Jon easily lifts the two remaining suitcases that the cab had left outside the door and she picks up the bin-bag of bedding and they take them up to her room. She curses as she follows him upstairs and is faced with an eyeful of toned glutes that are nicely moulded by his training shorts. If she hadn’t made that crack about muscles she probably wouldn’t have even noticed them, but she did and now can’t help but appreciate that he does have some good muscles going on.

“Thanks,” she says as he places her suitcases down in her room, which is still full of teenage paraphernalia.

“No problem,” he says.

\---------------

Jon continues to blow up in the media as July turns into August. He has a blistering pre-season tour of China and Japan and Sansa finds herself actually following him, joining Arya and Robb to watch his games at weird times of the day. He’s also all over the press with rumours of high profile advertising contracts and articles praising his more sombre way of life. Seems that being a big star doesn’t make Jon any better at going out to nightclubs and partying all night with a bevy of beauties. Theon is scornful, bemoaning how this fame is wasted on Jon Snow. However, Sansa can’t agree. After dating both Joffrey and Harry, she’s over guys who deem how successful a night is by how many gossip columns they got into and how many girls they were photographed with.

Then Jon is back and training harder than ever as the new season draws ever clearer. The Sunday before Man United are due to play their opening game of the season, he’s at the Stark house for Sunday lunch.

“Hey,” he says, sitting down on the sofa next to where Sansa is reading.

“Hi,” she says, not looking up from her book.

“Erm…is it okay if I talk to you?”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing already?”

“No, I mean privately.”

That gets her attention away from _Mary Barton_ and she frowns a little as she looks over at him. He looks nervous.

“Sure,” she replies easily and drags him up to her room.

Once they are ensconced in there, Sansa sitting on her bed and Jon pacing nervously up and down, she asks, “What’s up?”

“So, remember our conversation about droves of girls flocking to my side.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m not sure there are droves, but there’s one girl in particular and she’s being kind of persistent.”

She smothers her giggle at his deeply uncomfortable expression and just nods understandingly.

“She wasn’t really taking no for an answer and the guys were ribbing me about not dealing with it so I kind of told her that I was seeing someone.”

“Okay,” she says uncomprehending.

Jon rubs his neck anxiously. “I told her that I was seeing you.”

“What?”

“You were the first name that I thought of,” he says in a rush. “She was demanding to know who my girlfriend was and why she’s never seen you around and I just blurted out that it was you and that it’s kind of new and we’re keeping it quiet because I’ve known you forever and we wanted to see if it worked out before going public with the family.”

Sansa’s still confused, but she’s not terribly surprised. Jon has never been very good at dealing with girls. It is kind of funny how bad he is at it. She’d tried to give him some tips when they’d been younger, given him ways to talk to girls and things to say, but she isn’t shocked that he’s still floundering. Especially with girls who chase after the rich lifestyle of professional footballers.

“Okay,” she says, deciding that she just needs to roll with it. “So, we’re dating?”

Hands pushed deep into his back pocket, Jon says, “If you don’t mind?”

“What exactly is involved?”

“Not much,” he says quickly as if to reassure her. “But the WAGs all tend to turn up for matches, especially the first game of the season. Would you be able to come to Old Trafford next weekend?”

WAGs. Sansa grimaces at the term. She hates it. Hates that all wives and girlfriends of players are lumped into this one derogatory term. Yeah, sure, some women went after footballers for the fame and the glory, but not all of them and she hates that it’s just assumed that they have.

Plus, she is going to be lumped into that category now.

“You’re lucky we’ve known each other since childhood, Snow,” she says. “You owe me!”

He grins then, relief clearly written across his face. “Yeah, I know.”

\-----------

An arm snakes around Sansa’s waist and she looks up from where she’s been staring down at the deserted pitch, startled. The match has been over for a while and Old Trafford has emptied out, but the families of players are still here, waiting for them to be released from their post-match responsibilities.

It’s Jon. His hair still wet from the shower.

“Hey,” he says. “Thanks for waiting.”

“I’d be crappy fake girlfriend if I didn’t,” she says lightly.

“Everything okay?”

Surprisingly, it has been. She’s been taken under the wing by a couple of the more experienced wives, who have made her feel welcome. Of course, she’s met Ygritte, the beautiful but rather pushy red-head who’s been chasing Jon and scared him into creating a fake girlfriend. She can see why he wouldn’t be able to cope with her.

“Yeah. Congrats on the great game,” she says and then notices Ygritte watching them out the corner of her eye.

They haven’t discussed how to actually act around each other to make it seem like they are actually dating, which she now sees is a mistake. Taking the initiative, she leans towards him and presses her lips to his. He freezes a little in shock before his lips soften and part. Unable to help herself, she deepens the kiss and his arm tightens around her waist, pulling her closer against him. If they weren’t currently in the player’s lounge at Old Trafford and were somewhere a lot more private, Sansa is pretty sure she would have pushed Jon up against the nearest wall and turned the kiss a lot more X-rated.

Then her brain then catches up to her and she steps back. Jon’s mouth chases after hers and they share a couple of smaller, softer kisses before she buries her face into his neck and whispers into his ear, “Sorry. Ygritte is watching.”

Sansa feels him stiffen for a moment before he replies, “Good thinking.”

They part again, his arm going back around her waist and she steadies her fast beating heart as they go to mingle with others.

It’s a good job she’s the daughter of a politician and so used to burying inconvenient feelings behind a polite mask of small talk. She’s able to suppress how surprised she is by their kisses and concentrate on playing the excited and proud girlfriend of Man Utd’s latest debut. However, she can’t help but sneak looks at him and notices that he seems as rattled as she is. She wonders if he enjoyed the kiss as much as she did. By the way his thumb rubs little circles on her hip that burns through the thin material of her summer dress, she thinks he did.

\----------

“Okay, what the hell’s going on between you and Jon?” Arya asks bursting into her room, three weeks later.

“What do you mean? I told you.”

“Yeah, you told me some bullshit story about how he told some pushy woman that he already had a girl so she’d leave him alone and somehow you were the only name he could come up.”

In Arya’s bald words, the story sounds even lamer and she shrugs a little. “It’s true.”

“It’s bullshit, that’s what it is. You and Jon have been dancing around each other since you went to the opening match of the season.”

“No, we’re not,” she denies hotly.

Arya scoffs. “Please. Something happened between the two of you and now you both keep staring longingly at each other when the other isn’t looking.”

Sansa blushes. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I wish,” Arya says disdainfully. “It’s painful being in the same room as the pair of you at the moment. You should both be grateful that Robb is too preoccupied with Wylla to have noticed otherwise he’d be going into uber big brother mode.”

“He stares at me when I’m not looking?” she can’t help but ask.

Her little sister rolls her eyes. “With the dopiest expression on his face.”

Against her will, a small smile breaks out.

“Yeah, it looks a little like that,” Arya says in a deeply unimpressed voice. “Do something about it. It’s sickening.”

“Like what?”

Heaving a massive sigh, Arya says, “Do I really need to give you pointers about this? You’re Sansa Stark. I’m pretty sure your ten step plan to successful dating is still being passed down at our old school.”

“But it’s Jon. I know what to do with Joffreys and Harrys, but Jon is, well, Jon!”

“Ugh, I can’t believe I’m having to get involved in this, but I guess I’m going to have to,” Arya says. “You’re fake dating him, work out how to turn that into real dating him. I don’t know. Kiss him.”

“We already did that. Several times,” Sansa mumbles.

Arya snorts. “And somehow you’re both still not dating for real?”

“It’s been in public,” she says miserably before adding, “He’s really good at it, too.”

“La, la la! I can’t hear you,” Arya says loudly with her hands over her ears. Making her way back out of Sansa’s room, she adds, “Kiss him in private. Then you won’t have to stop.”

Sansa purses her lips as she digests the information Arya’s given her. If anyone understands Jon then it’s Arya Stark. They’d always been close. So if Arya thinks Jon is harbouring a crush on her too then it’s likely to be true.

Mind whirling with possibilities, Sansa lays down on her bed and starts thinking of ways to bring this fake dating scenario to a head.

\-----------

“You know,” Sansa says musingly. “You still haven’t shown me this luxury flat of yours. Robb and Theon have been raving about it. Even Arya’s gushed at me about the size of the bathrooms.”

Jon briefly looks over to her from where he’s driving. They’ve been out for one of his teammates’ birthday. A surprisingly staid affair considering the reputation of footballers. But then again, they have a match in two days and Mourinho is not a manager to cross.

“You want to see it?” he asks.

“Yeah. Can we go now?”

“You don’t want to get home?”

“It’s not that late,” she replies, keeping quiet about how she has plans to not actually return home tonight.

Ever since Arya had burst into her room eight days ago, Sansa has been looking for the perfect opportunity to get Jon completely alone. Tonight and his brand new flat have given her the opportunity she’s been waiting for.

“Okay,” he says, taking the next right and driving them back into the city.

Sansa whistles as they exit the underground car park and enter the plush lobby. “Nice,” she comments.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s a bit flashy. If I wasn’t living on my own, I think I’d have gone for a house. Something a little more home like.”

She bites back a smile. Most twenty-four year old men would kill for a flat in a complex like this, but that’s what she loves – likes, she mentally corrects – about Jon. He’s not into all those trappings. He plays football for the love of the game and not for all the perks that come when you are a top player.

Taking her hand, he pulls her over to the bank of lifts and presses the button for the eighth floor and keeps hold of her hand. Warmth spreads through her chest at his actions. He doesn’t need to be holding her hand here. They’re completely alone, but yet he is. She’s been on the lookout for signs that he’s into ever since her conversation with Arya and this is just the latest in a long line of subtle things he does.

Unlocking the door, he ushers her in. “Straight ahead is the li-,” he starts to say before he’s cut off by Sansa whirling around, pressing her mouth against his and pushing him up against the front door. He’s stunned for a split second, before his hand moves up and cups her jaw, tilting her head slightly so he can deepen the kiss. His other hand rests hotly on her hip, tugging her close into him.

“Wait,” he says, pulling away and resting his forehead against hers. “What do you want? One night or to actually date me because if it’s the former then we need to stop now. I can’t do just one night. I’m crazy about you, Sansa. Have been for months now.”

She smiles fondly. “To date you, silly.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! I’m crazy about you, too. Now shut up and kiss me.”

He grins at her for a brief moment before complying.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me over on [tumblr](http://rumaan.tumblr.com/) if you so wish


End file.
